The Journey Metaphor Doesn't Go Anywhere

Everyone has heard the journey metaphor. Sooner or later, every political or religious leader facing the necessity of taking an unpopular course of action always tells his faithful "Remember, we are all on a journey together, and we have to be ready to act accordingly." Somehow this is supposed to help people tighten their belts, gird up their loins, and brace themselves as they go back out into the storm. Having heard variations of this line all of my life, I'm afraid I now take a rather jaundiced view of it.

There are some problems with the journey metaphor. For example, you may realize that rather than being on a journey, i.e., going from one point to another, in reality you are just going in circles. An example of this came up a couple of months ago when I was talking with a friend about cancer and the impact it has on a family's life. We talked about my bout with multiple myeloma and her father's struggle with some other kind of cancer. I no longer remember exactly what brought it up, but somewhere in the middle of the conversation I remarked "I really hate the journey metaphor", and she vigorously agreed. She mentioned how when her father was first diagnosed, he was in a lot of distress, as were she and the other family members trying to care for him. Some social worker at the hospital, in trying to be helpful, told her "Now, remember, you are all on a journey together ... ". Before the social worker could finish, my friend interrupted her and said "This is no journey! It's a nightmare!" Certainly my own experience with cancer seems very far from being journey-like. Yes, there were constant changes, but they were cyclic, or even chaotic, to the point that it seemed at times I was making progress more on the basis of Brownian motion than because I was actually going anywhere. (Happily, I eventually did start improving, and am now in much better shape.)

Another problem with the journey metaphor is that it encourages the wrong set of priorities. If you are on a journey, then you won't be coming back to the point again. So you have no incentive whatsoever for cleaning up your messes. It's easier just to pack up and move on, leaving your trash behind. Even figuratively this is not a good idea. Unresolved problems left behind can certainly come back and bite you, especially if it turns out that you are not journeying, but going in circles.

A much better metaphor, it would seem to me, is construction. You are trying to build something, whether it is a healthy body or a new organization. With construction, you have to pay attention to the details. You have to make sure that you have the tools and materials you need, and you have to take care of the trash.

A grimmer but more apt metaphor sometimes is war or battle. If you are facing a genuine obstacle, perhaps other people or even the perversity of nature, you might well find yourself conducting metaphorical military operations. However, don't get carried away with this. The war metaphor is way over-used, too.

Nevertheless, if you are facing a problem and are responsible for getting a group of people to deal with it, for heaven's sake, don't tell them they are on a journey. Be honest with them, and tell them that they have a problem, and they have to deal with it, perhaps by fighting something or building something. Going on a journey is just running away.